Day 42: Confetti Cupcakes with Strawberry Buttercream Frosting

Well, you won’t be surprised to hear that I’m doing some more painting tonight. We’re getting tantalizingly close now. I just need to finish a couple quick coats on the cabinet doors and get “you know who” to hang them up for me. Also, according to “you know who” I need to do another coat on the BOTTOM of the cabinet. Really – who is going to look at the bottom of the cabinet?

This makes me think of a funny story that may explain my reluctance to paint things that won’t be seen. When John and I were first married, we were fortunate enough to move into the home that had belonged to my grandparents until they both passed away. It was a cute bungalow in a beautiful suburb – just the perfect house for a young couple.

Anyway, the point of this story is that my grandfather was an interesting person. He was a very proper, rather sophisticated banker who worked in Chicago. Apparently he was also a self-styled handyman and had done a number of projects around the house. The thing is – he did everything kind of “half-_____ed” if you know what I mean! When we moved furniture, we discovered that he had just painted around things – didn’t even move tables and paint behind them. So – this is a long way of telling you that I think I come by my shoddy painting practices genetically. At least that’s the story I’m sticking to!

In addition to painting, I decided to make a Valentine’s recipe and send it over to my daughter. She lives in a sorority house and has a hungry boyfriend, so I’m sure she can find some use for it. I looked around on Pinterest for quite awhile until I found something that didn’t look too complicated. I’m a firm believer that God would not have invented bakeries if he wanted me to spend a lot of time making intricate little baked goods.

A little red food coloring made all the difference

I used a funfetti cake (Brooke’s favorite) and added some red food color so it turned a pretty pink color. I used my mini muffin pan and some cute cupcake liners I found at Target. I wasn’t sure how long to bake them, so I tried 10 minutes and that seemed to be just about right.

As I mentioned earlier, I really like frosting so I looked for an interesting recipe that would be good for Valentine’s Day. That’s how I found this wonderful sounding Strawberry Buttercream frosting at My Recipes.com: http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/strawberry-buttercream-frosting-10000000589734/. I happened to have some strawberries in the refrigerator, so I added them as described in the directions. The texture is a little different than a regular buttercream, but it really has a good strawberry flavor that’s not overly sweet.

I hope Brooke can find someone to help her eat all these cupcakes!

I topped them with some pink sprinkles and some Valentine’s candy. They look really pretty and tasted good. I’m just hoping that the frosting sets up so that I can have Big Daddio drop these off tomorrow.

Okay, well it’s time for The Bachelor. I’ve got some more painting to do and I’m hoping we might actually get the doors up in the next two days. Have a great evening.